How to book, what we charge, when the balance is due, and what happens if you need to cancel or postpone. Written in plain English; the legal version is on the terms page. Travel insurance with cancellation cover is the easiest route to protect against last-minute changes.
Drop us a message via the contact form, WhatsApp, or email. Tell us the dates, group size, and trip you have in mind. We reply with an itinerary and a fixed quote within 24 office hours.
Pay the deposit (30 % for trekking, 50 % for climbing) by bank transfer or Stripe. We hold your spot, your guide, and your teahouse rooms the moment the deposit clears.
Passport scan, two passport photos, travel insurance schedule, international flight numbers, and any medical or dietary notes. We use this to issue ACAP and TIMS.
We meet you at the airport or hotel. The full trip briefing happens in our Kathmandu office at Galkopakha Marg before the drive or flight to Pokhara. Final balance is paid here in cash or by card. Cards carry a 3.5 % charge, 3.75 % at the very most, which is what our bank levies on foreign card payments and which we pass on at cost rather than mark up. Paying cash avoids it entirely.
Trip starts the next morning. Our guide is with you the whole way. Daily updates from us to your emergency contact at home, on request.
Confirms the booking. Climbing requires a higher deposit because of equipment and base-camp logistics that we lock in earlier.
Cash (USD, EUR, GBP, AUD, NPR) or card. Paid at the briefing meeting in our Kathmandu office, before the trip starts. Cards carry a 3.5 % bank charge on foreign payments, 3.75 % at the most, passed on at cost, so cash is the cheaper option if you have it.
Bank wire to Everest Bank. Stripe accepts Visa and Mastercard internationally. Cash on arrival is welcomed.
We invoice in USD. NPR and other major currencies are converted at the day's buying rate published by Nepal Rastra Bank.
Cancel more than a month out and we keep 20 % of the trip cost, but we keep it for you. It sits on your account as a deposit and comes straight off the price of the next trip you book with us in Nepal, whether that is Mardi Himal again or somewhere else entirely. Come back and you have lost nothing.
The percentages above apply only to the part of the trip cost we control. Anything already paid to a third party on your behalf is deducted separately, in full, before your refund is calculated. It is not covered by the percentage and it is not recoverable from us. On a climb this matters more, because the permit alone is a large share of the trip.
ACAP, TIMS and climbing permits are issued in your name by government bodies. Once we have paid for them they cannot be cancelled, transferred, or reclaimed by us or by anyone else. This holds no matter how much notice you give.
If we booked you a refundable fare, we file the claim and pass on whatever the airline releases, less the airline's own cancellation charges. If the fare was non-refundable, and most domestic Nepal fares are, nothing can be recovered.
Hotel nights, internal transfers and specialist equipment are often paid for weeks before you travel. We return whatever genuinely comes back to us, and we show you the supplier's terms if you ask.
Everything on this page applies to a peak climb exactly as it applies to a trek: the cancellation schedule above, the refund rules, postponement, and how we handle weather, flight delays, and itinerary changes. Two things differ, and only two.
Climbing equipment, the high-altitude crew and base-camp logistics are committed earlier than they are on a teahouse trek, so we ask for half up front. The cancellation percentages themselves are exactly the same as for a trek.
A Nepal Mountaineering Association peak permit costs many times an ACAP entry permit and is issued in your name. Like every permit it carries no refund, so on a climb the non-refundable deduction is a bigger share of the trip than it would be on a trek.
Paying a deposit, or confirming by email or WhatsApp, means you accept our terms and conditions in full, for yourself and for everyone in your party. This schedule is binding from the moment we confirm your booking, so please read it before you pay. If anything is unclear, ask us first. Read the full terms and conditions.
Send every cancellation request in writing by email, with the reason for cancelling. Once the journey has started, a guest who chooses to leave the trek is not refunded for the days or services left unused.
Refunds are processed within 14 working days of the written cancellation. Bank wires take 3 to 5 working days to arrive after we issue them; card refunds appear on your statement within 5 to 10 working days. We deduct only the actual bank or card processing fee, no admin charge.
Every traveller must have travel insurance covering the altitude and activities of the trip. For the trek, that means trekking to 4,500 m and helicopter evacuation. For the climb, it means climbing with ropes, crampons, and ice axe to 6,000 m, and helicopter evacuation. We will ask for a copy of the schedule before the trip starts. Without it we cannot allow you to begin, and that is treated as a no-show under the cancellation table above.
Cancellation cover on the policy also protects you against last-minute illness, family emergency, or flight disruption. It is the standard way to recover the deposit if life happens. Read the policy schedule carefully; the marketing page is not the policy.
Postpone once at no charge. The deposit transfers to the new dates. New dates must fall within 18 months of the original start.
15 % postponement fee on the total trip cost. Covers the cost of releasing teahouses, hotels, and guide for the original dates.
Earthquake, government closure, pandemic-level disruption: free postponement, no fee, dates valid for 24 months.
Events beyond our reasonable control (weather, flight delays, earthquake, landslide, political unrest, pandemic, government closures of conservation areas) are not our responsibility. We will reroute, postpone, or shorten a trip when needed and we will refund the cost of any service not delivered. We do not refund services already used: permits, hotels, transport, meals. This is the same for a peak climb as for a trek. The full wording is in clauses 10 to 12 of the terms.
If the mountain, the weather, or the government closes the route, we change the plan rather than cancel on you. Whatever service we did not deliver is refunded. Whatever you already used is not, because it is already paid out to a lodge, a driver, or a permit office.
A delayed or cancelled mountain flight is outside our hands. The airport shuttle, the extra hotel night, the extra meals, the jeep or helicopter you take instead: those are on you, not on us, and they sit outside the trip price. Where one cost covers several people it is split between those affected. We tell you the figure in writing before it is spent. This is exactly what delay cover on your travel insurance is for.
Whether the change is one you ask for or one the conditions force on us, nothing moves until we have discussed it and both sides agree. Any extra cost it creates is yours: extra nights, extra meals, extra transport, an extra guide day, a permit reissued. We state that cost in writing once, before it is spent, and that stated figure is the figure you pay.
